The Lawfare Podcast - The Lawfare Institute

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Lawfare Archive: Trump Gives Classified Material to the Russians Aug 26, 2023

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From May 15, 2017: This afternoon, the Washington Post broke a major story: Donald Trump disclosed highly classified material to the Russian ambassador and Foreign Minister in the Oval Office last week, compromising a highly sensitive counterterrorism program run by an allied intelligence service. This evening, we got former DNI General Counsel Robert Litt on the line for a discussion with Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes of the latest mess. Litt helped coordinate and manage the intelligence community's response to the Edward Snowden revelations, so he knows a little something about responding to massive intelligence disclosures. They talked about how bad the disclosure may be, what the remedies for it are, and what we still don't know.

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A Chilling Violation of Press Freedoms in Marion, Kansas Aug 25, 2023

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Earlier this month, there was big trouble in little Marion, Kansas, where an entire police department raided the offices of the Marion County Record, a small, family-owned newspaper about 60 miles north of Wichita, with seven employees and a circulation of about 4,000.

To discuss this alarming violation of press freedom, Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien sat down with Caitlin Vogus, Deputy Director of Advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation. They talked about what motivated the raid, how it went down, and the chilling effect this kind of thing can have on small town newspapers and big media organizations alike. They also discussed what journalists—from lone freelancers to sizable newsrooms—can do to protect themselves from all manner of press freedom violations.

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Chatter: The ERAS Tour (Ben’s Version) with Benjamin Wittes Aug 24, 2023

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On April 13, 2022, in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes conducted his first “special military operation” at the Russian embassy in Washington, DC. Now, Wittes is conducting these protests abroad on what he calls the ERAS (Eradicating Russian Ambassadorial Sleep) Tour. In his conversation with Katherine Pompilio, one of Lawfare’s associate editors and this week’s Chatter guest host, Wittes talks about his most successful special military operation yet, dealing with international law enforcement, NATO’s impact on Baltic countries, the American versus European understanding of the war in Ukraine, and more.

Works mentioned in this episode:

Ben’s Substack Dog Shirt Daily
Ben’s speech at a rally in Stockholm
The work of Nikita Titov

Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.

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Unpacking Cyber Diplomacy with Ambassador Nathalie Jaarsma Aug 24, 2023

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This week, the UN ad hoc committee tasked with elaborating a cybercrime convention is meeting in New York. Delegates will be involved in in-depth negotiations of the draft convention, ahead of the concluding session in January 2024. The cybercrime convention is only one of many initiatives in the growing field of cyber diplomacy. Looming over this work is a big question: Is there enough common ground to pave the path for consensus?

Lawfare’s Fellow in Technology Policy and Law Eugenia Lostri sat down with Ambassador Nathalie Jaarsma, the Netherlands Ambassador at-Large for Security Policy and Cyber. They discussed the tensions plaguing the cyber negotiations in the UN, how diplomacy can help ensure accountability for malicious state behavior in cyberspace, and how to think about progress in the field.

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Zach Dorfman on “Spy Valley: An Engineer’s Nuclear Betrayal” Aug 23, 2023

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In May 1984, former U.S. Marine, engineer, and early Silicon Valley entrepreneur James Harper was sentenced to life in prison for his central role in an audacious scheme to sell a bevy of classified documents relating to U.S. missile defense to the Soviet bloc and its allies. Four decades later, his story was almost forgotten, until it was rediscovered and investigated by national security reporter Zach Dorfman with help from some of the men who helped catch Harper—and the spy himself. Now, with help from our friends at Goat Rodeo, Dorfman has turned this story into a six-part podcast series entitled “Spy Valley,” which takes a close look at Harper's seminal spy case. Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sat down with Dorfman to talk over Harper's story and what it can tell us about the relationship between America's national security and those working at the bleeding edge of technological development.

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The PEPFAR Reauthorization Battle, with Emily Bass Aug 22, 2023

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In 2003, President Bush created the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, and in the twenty years since, the program has been credited with saving over 25 million lives and stabilizing health systems around the world. On Sept. 30, 2023, the program will expire if Congress doesn’t act, putting millions of people at risk of losing access to HIV/AIDS treatment.

Lawfare Associate Editor of Communications Anna Hickey sat down with Emily Bass, a writer and activist who has spent more than twenty years writing about and working on HIV/AIDS. In 2021, she wrote “To End a Plague,” a book on America's war on AIDS in Africa. They discussed how PEPFAR has changed over the past two decades, why it is at risk of expiring this fall, and what the expiration would mean for the millions of people who depend on it.

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Does It Matter Whether Trump Believed His Own Lies? Aug 21, 2023

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It’s only been a few weeks since Special Counsel Jack Smith indicted Donald Trump. But both he and his lawyers have already been previewing their case in defense: that he was protected by the First Amendment, that he relied on the advice of counsel, and—the glue holding it all together—he really believed what he was saying.

We recently published two articles on the subject. The first, by Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes and Legal Fellow Saraphin Dhanani, assesses Trump’s likely defenses. The second, by Lawfare Senior Editor Roger Parloff, argues that a jury may well see through them. Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett sat down with Ben, Saraphin, and Roger to talk through it all.

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Rational Security: The “Donny with the Gold Hair” Edition Aug 20, 2023

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This week on Rational Security, Alan, Quinta, and Scott were joined by Fulton County correspondent Anna Bower to talk through the week’s big news down south, including:

“Waiting on a Midnight Complaint in Georgia.” Late on Monday night, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis finally indicted Donald Trump alongside eighteen co-conspirators for attempting to interfere with the state of Georgia’s 2020 election results. What does this fourth criminal indictment mean for the universe of legal cases against the former president?
“Hunter Becomes the Hunted.” Earlier this week, Attorney General Merrick Garland took the unexpected step of appointing Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss as a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden. What led to this move? And what does it mean for the investigation into the president’s son?
“Why So CFIUS?” President Biden has finally issued a long-expected executive order installing some controls on outbound U.S. investments, particularly in relation to China and certain sensitive technology sectors. How big a deal is this new policy?

For object lessons, Alan shouted out his latest favorite thriller about a bunch of falsely accused Brits, “Suspicion.” Quinta brought the listeners’ attention to an entertaining court transcript about “fleets.” Scott celebrated the late Paul Reubens’ legacy as Pee-Wee Herman, including his phenomenal 1979 debut on “The Dating Game.” And Anna endorsed her latest courtroom treat, Papa John’s Pizza.

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Lawfare Archive: Allies: Faithful and Valuable Service Aug 19, 2023

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From May 16, 2022: In order to tell you this story, we need to start at the beginning, just before the U.S. invasion. After 9/11, the CIA set their sights on al-Qaeda’s base in Afghanistan. After a military invasion that fall, people up and down the chain of command learned that in order to fight this war the US needed local partners to help.

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Congressional Oversight, Post-Trump Aug 18, 2023

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Listeners of this podcast are probably familiar with Molly Reynolds’s work on Congress. She’s a Senior Fellow at Brookings and a Senior Editor at Lawfare—and she has a new report out at Brookings, with Naomi Maehr, on “How partisan and policy dynamics shape congressional oversight in the post-Trump era.” Molly and her team have collected an enormous amount of data over the years about how Congress conducts oversight, and the report is a thought-provoking overview of what the legislature got up to during the 117th Congress.

Today on the show, Lawfare Senior Editor Quinta Jurecic talked with Molly about her report and what patterns she’s found in oversight from the 116th Congress through today. For fans of the Jan. 6 Committee’s work, they also discussed that committee’s investigation and what it does and doesn’t tell us about congressional investigations going forward.

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